In a unique theatrical collaboration, Border Crossings joins forces with artists from India alongside artists from Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre in China, France, and Sweden. Re-Orientations is created by an international company with no single common language and features theatrical forms from across cultures including the all-male Indian form Yakshagana. The production has been developed over two years in London and Shanghai, and opens at Soho Theatre before touring to China and Sweden.

For the first time, leading Chinese theatre-makers are collaborating with their counterparts in India and the West to address their changing society and its relationship to a globalised world. The play takes a frank look at China’s single-child policy, at the decline of traditional Asian cultures, and at previously taboo subjects like homosexuality. Set in the aftermath of a young woman’s suicide, the play brings together apparently disconnected lives. A Chinese baby is abandoned by the roadside. Two Swedish actors play out sexual dramas, both onstage and off. A mother battles with tsunami relief in India until an unexpected phone call shatters her world and all the characters’ lives collide across continents.

Performed in English, Kannada, Mandarin and Swedish but fully comprehensible to a London audience, Re-Orientations draws from a broad range of performance traditions; from the all-male Indian form Yakshagana to Swedish naturalism to the all-female Shanghai yue opera. Stunning imagery collides with a powerful physical style and vivid storytelling in this multi-cultural and multi-media explosion of East-meets-West. Border Crossings’ Patron Peter Sellars says: “This project embodies a hope for a mutually imagined future for all our changing worlds”.

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